Hugo Larochelle first caught the AI research mistake after internship in Yoshua Bengio during her undergraduate studies at the University of Montreal. Decades later, Larochelle now takes over his former mentor, the Science Director of the MILA AI Institute in Quebec, an organization known for its in-depth study and research in the field of AI.
“My first mission is to maintain our research capabilities and ensure we continue to be the leading institute,” Larochelle, who started a new role yesterday (September 2), told Observer.
Larochelle will oversee MILA’s approximately 1,500 machine learning researchers, founded as a small research lab in 1993. Today, the institute has become the cornerstone of Canada’s national AI strategy, as well as two other research centers in Ontario and Alberta.
Larochelle “has the rigor, creativity and vision needed to achieve MILA’s scientific ambitions and accompany it to grow,” Bengio said. “Our collaboration goes back over 20 years and I’m very happy to see it continue in a new form.”
After his early work with Bengio, Larochelle completed a postdoctoral fellowship under the leadership of Geoffrey Hinton of the University of Montreal. Bengio, Hinton and Yann Lecun won the 2018 Turing Award for their contribution to neural networks, a once neglected field but now at the heart of the AI revolution.
Larochelle’s own career reflects this transformation. His first paper was rejected for relying on neural networks, but the importance of the field soared as their application became clear. “We feel like we are at a critical center in the field, which is exciting,” Lalochelle said.
He went on to lead AI research at Google’s Montreal office in 2016, and later acquired by Twitter (now X) the co-founder of a machine learning startup. While most of his eight years at Google have been very productive, Larochelle noted that growing competition and strong focus on consumer products have become more difficult, which makes him even more difficult, which is a key factor in his decision to Mila. “My passion is indeed a scientific discovery, and I heard that Yoshua will find a successor,” he said.
Larochelle hopes to build on Montreal’s tradition of scientific discovery in his new role. “I want to set the conditions for us to make the next one over the next five years, and that is really the basis for everything else we do,” he said, highlighting interest in improving AI literacy, developing biodiversity tools and accelerating scientific research.
More broadly, Lalochelle wants to ensure innovation grows faster – across the industry and within the Mira range. “There is definitely an interest in making sure our researchers, who may be interested in doing their own research and doing startups based on what they find, and being able to do that,” he said.
